


A Fool For You

by grimd0rk



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Human Love, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimd0rk/pseuds/grimd0rk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat has a plan to execute on the first of April.</p><p>John has a prank to pull.</p><p>Naturally, everything goes horribly wrong.</p><p> </p><p>Happy April, Johnkat fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fool For You

**Author's Note:**

> So this was one of those things that I just about wrote in the space of two hours, then stopped, looked at my hands and thought _what have I done_...  
>  Thankfully my fantastic comrade [heliotrope](http://archiveofourown.org/users/heliotrope/) was there to do the 8luh 8luh huge 8eta thing and after a lot of editing I have finally deemed this publishable. Enjoy!
> 
> A note about the setting: this takes place approximately two years after the completion of the game, on a world in which the humans and trolls co-exist.

Karkat Vantas had always seen himself as the blueprint for the human race. This was something of a fallacious assumption, but nonetheless he had proclaimed himself their benevolent leader for life. There was one aspect of the human mentality, however, for which he claimed absolutely no responsibility.

Romance.

After the merging of their cultures, his human "friends" had adapted to the Troll Romance system rather well. Dave and Rose took to it instantly, and almost a bit _too_ enthusiastically, and while Jade was the sort of person who tried to avoid caliginous feelings, she still gave her support to the system. And why wouldn't she? It's a fucking good system.

But then there's John. Since their first meeting, John had been the thorn in Karkat's side and every single one of the irons in his fire. And lately he had been complicating things by point-blank refusing to adopt the Troll Romance system. He was either blatantly ignoring Rose's obvious pale advances or was too dumb to notice them, and while Karkat knew that both are equally likely, there was a scary chance that it was more from column A than column B.

Which meant that John will never have a matesprit.

This is was an issue for Karkat because as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he thought that John would make a pretty fucking fantastic matesprit.

So Karkat decided to study Human Romance. If his goal was to win the heart of a human, he'd have to think like a human. This was easier said than done. He watched all the so-called "classics" of Human Romance, but _Gone With The Wind_ and _Casablanca_ didn't tell him anything about why every time he thought of John his innards did an acrobatic fucking pirouette up his gullet. Not even _When Harry Met Sally_ and _Love, Actually_ could help. (Although he did indulge in _Love, Actually_ more than once, because fuck you that's why.) And the only thing he’d gotten out of a _Pride and Prejudice_ marathon with Kanaya was an overwhelming desire to see John drenched in water.

It was a bit of a shock to discover that human romantic movies were not educational in the least, even more of a shock to discover that even after more evidence that Human Romance was the inferior system in all possible ways, he still wanted John. As something. A matesprit or a human lover, he wasn't sure.

He just... _wanted_.

And there was only one person he could ask about this.

 

  


TT: I'm sorry, please allow me a moment to relish the fact that you're asking me for romantic advice.  
CG: FUCK YOU ROSE.  
CG: FUCK YOU AND YOUR EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY.  
TT: But surely you can appreciate the amusing nature of this situation.  
TT: After all, all you asked was "I NEED YOU TO TELL ME *EXACTLY* HOW HUMAN LOVE WORKS", which I could instantly interpret as: "I NEED YOU TO TELL ME *EXACTLY* HOW TO GET JOHN TO LOVE ME."  
CG: HOLD ON I NEVER MENTIONED JOHN.  
TT: No, you didn't. As I said, it was my interpretation. Reading between the lines. Psychology, remember?  
TT: And I'm sure by now you've realised that you're not the only one here who wants John to fill one of their quadrants.  
CG: ...  
CG: BUT I'M NOT SO SURE ANY MORE THAT I WANT HIM TO BE MY MATESPRIT.  
TT: Do go on.  
CG: WELL I MEAN  
CG: I THINK HE'D BE A GOOD MATESPRIT.  
CG: BUT  
TT: But what?  
CG: BUT BEFORE I CAN MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION I NEED YOU TO TELL ME HOW HUMAN LOVE WORKS.  
CG: THAT'S WHAT.  
TT: It's not that simple, Karkat. There is no textbook definition of love. It's different for everyone, human or troll.  
CG: WELL HOW ABOUT YOU AND KANAYA.  
CG: DO YOU HUMAN LOVE HER OR DO YOU TROLL PITY HER?  
TT: That is entirely irrelevant to this conversation, and I'm pretty sure it's none of your business.  
CG: I'M BARING MY SOUL TO YOU.  
TT: Yes, and I'm rather enjoying it. So here's a question for you: if John were to fill your flushed quadrant, would you still want to fill your caliginous quadrant?  
CG: UGH  
CG: I DON'T KNOW.  
TT: From John's point of view, that would be polyamory. And, by extent, Human Cheating.  
CG: I DON'T WANT THAT.  
CG: I MEAN, I DON'T WANT TO HUMAN CHEAT ON HIM.  
CG: I KNOW IT SOUNDS STUPID BUT I DON'T REALLY WANT TO MAKE HIM UNHAPPY.  
TT: Now we're getting somewhere. You want him to be your exclusive lover.  
CG: I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE TALKING ABOUT THIS WITH YOU.  
CG: IT'S KIND OF A PERSONAL MATTER.  
TT: As Dave would say, "man up", Karkat. You initiated this conversation; now see it through.  
TT: Do you or do you not want John to be your exclusive concupiscent partner?  
CG: YES  
CG: YES I FUCKING DO.  
CG: OH GOD  
CG: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD  
CG: WHAT IS HAPPENING  
TT: I believe you are experiencing Human Love, Karkat.  
CG: OH GOD  
TT: Quite. So are you going to do the right thing and make an honest man of our John?  
CG: ROSE I'M NOT GOING TO MARRY HIM.>  
TT: Just checking.

 

But Rose raised a valid point. These emotions were such a muddle in his mind, but at the end of the day, he wondered if maybe he was just beating around the bush. As he stared grumpily into his screen, he began to think, how hard would it be to just ask John out on one fucking date? The worst that could happen was that John would call “no homo” (which Karkat still retained was a redundant and stupid way of saying “you’re friendzoned, fucknuts”) and he’d get to hang out with John for a while and slowly subject himself to sexual tension torture.

It was coming up to John's human wriggling day, and Karkat thought he had a pretty fucking good idea for that day. Since John seemed to set so much importance by turning eighteen, the inevitable conclusion would be that he'd want to spend the day doing something exciting. Karkat was pretty sure he was the most exciting person in John's life.

The upshot of this was that he needed an excuse to see John in person, because there was no way he would confess his undying love to John without being able to see his reaction. He would message John _right now_ and ask him out for lunch tomorrow. And _then_ he would start asking the big questions.

Because, quadrant system be damned, he was going to be the protagonist in his own _Love, Actually_ -style subplot and _get his man_.

 

\---

 

John Egbert had experienced lots of crises. He'd battled all sorts of ridiculous monsters and had an intense internal struggle to get his head around the ins-and-outs of the game they'd all played. He'd mediated between his friends and he'd undergone a severe culture shock in meeting a whole new species from another universe.

But he'd never experienced anything like the current crisis of emotion that was keeping him up late, sick with worry.

John Egbert had fallen in love.

He hadn't just fallen in love with any old typical potential love interest. He had to fucking go and fall in love with Karkat fucking Vantas, an emotion which inspired him to swear more than fucking usual and generally just want to kick small fluffy things with all of his pent-up fucking _affection_.

Having a crush on someone was completely new to John. He had spent most of his teenage years focusing his energy _away_ from all the romantic drama that his friends seemed to attract, and instead trying just to be a kid and have fun and beat SBURB. Now that he’d beaten SBURB (admittedly with a little help from his friends) and was almost eighteen and therefore _ridiculously sophisticated_ he had begun to think about other things a bit more, one of those other things being Karkat in a mildly sexual manner.

It had started as a passing thought. They had all been at Kanaya’s hive, just sort of relaxing in each other’s company. John had noted Rose and Kanaya’s closeness, and he’d begun thinking. What would it be like to have a crush on someone of the same gender? He had glanced around his friends and made a mental evaluation. For most of the males, his conclusion was _no way_.

Then his eyes fell on Karkat, and it was like a lightbulb going off in his mind. Why hadn’t the thought occurred to him before?

And more importantly, why did it _keep_ occurring to him, long after it had first entered his mind?

Eventually he just bit the bullet and admitted to himself that he was crushing. Hard. This acceptance led to obsession, in the form of drawing silly pictures of himself and Karkat and suddenly waking up to discover the initials KV repeated innumerable times where his homework should have been. One night he even found himself with a blue sock on his left hand and a grey sock on his right hand, mushing his palms together and mumbling creative dialogue.

That was precisely the point when he realised that he had fallen and could not get up.

After a while, he began to class it as falling in love, because crushes are silly fads for teenagers. But could he _actually_ be in love at the tender age of almost-eighteen? Wasn’t there like some universal law governing how young is too young? Did that become redundant when the other party was an alien???

It was all so confusing.

So as April drew nearer, John decided to deal with this confusion the way he dealt with most things that confused him: by ignoring it entirely and hoping it would go away. For the most part, he avoided talking to Karkat on Pesterchum, and made sure that there were always other people there in group social situations.

This was working perfectly until the 31st of March. It was nearing midnight when John realised that he was practically honour-bound to pull the _mother_ _of all pranks_ on Karkat the next day.

April Fools’ Day.

This prank needed to be _perfect_ , to make up for the fact that he'd completely forgotten to prank anyone last year. It needed to catch Karkat off-guard and completely throw him off for a few seconds before he realised what the date was. And he _would_ realise, because Jade had been schooling him in human traditions lately, and it would be most remiss of her to have excluded the Most Important Day Of The Year.

He stared at his screen, chewing on the pen that should have been answering his maths questions. There were so many pranks he could pull on Karkat, none of which would have a desirable outcome. Anything physical would just end in John being injured horrifically whilst screaming “IT WAS JUST A PRANK” to deaf ears. Anything psychological would backfire because Karkat would be too dumb to notice that there was a difference in John’s attitude.

Unless it were something drastic.

Unless...

The perfect idea came to him in a flash of genius. He would test just how strong Karkat’s feelings for him were, or if there were any feelings beyond simple tolerance at all, by revoking their friendship.

Pure.

Genius.

To get this right, he needed to meet Karkat in a somewhat formal setting to establish a We Need To Talk Vibe. Like... a lunch date! He pulled the pen out of his mouth and chucked it over his shoulder, clicking away from the PDF of his maths textbook and opening up Pesterchum.

 

  
EB: hey karkat  
EB: hey  
EB: hey  
EB: hey  
EB: karkat hey  
EB: hey  
EB: karkat  
CG: JESUS FUCK JOHN  
CG: WHAT DO YOU WANT?  
EB: actually i just wanted to ask you something.  
EB: do you want to hang out tomorrow?  
EB: like, go out for brunch?  
CG: ACTUALLY THAT’S QUITE A COINCIDENCE JOHN  
CG: BECAUSE I WAS ABOUT TO ASK YOU PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING.  
EB: really? cool!  
EB: so it’s a date, then!  
CG: ...  
CG: ..........  
CG: .......................  
EB: no homo!

 

Oh god. John facepalmed. _Why_ had he typed that? That was totally the exact opposite of what he wanted to say!

But then, he had a prank to pull. And if Karkat thought he was actually _asking him out on a real date because how fucking awesome would THAT be_ then the plan would be ruined. Karkat wouldn’t fall for it at ALL.

The next day, they met up around half-eleven at a diner in the city. John was there stupidly early, and so he spent a good ten minutes folding and unfolding a napkin into a crane. Or, something vaguely resembling a crane. He was so distracted that he didn’t notice Karkat sitting down opposite him until he saw grey fingers reaching out and very nearly touching the napkin, but then pulling back in revulsion.

“John. Please tell me you did not just fold a human penis out of your napkin.”

John looked up sharply and blushed. “Karkat! It’s a _crane_.”

Karkat raised his eyebrows. Both of them. It was a thing that John had noticed – Karkat couldn’t raise one eyebrow at a time. “Ok, whatever,” Karkat said, “I don’t really care about your pathetic attempt at papercraft.”

Still blushing a bit, John subtly unfolded the napkin and shoved it to one side.

They sat for a few moments in an awkward silence, with John tapping out scales on the edge of the table and looking anywhere but at Karkat. Karkat made a frustrated noise.

“Ugh, John...”

John forced himself to make eye contact. Karkat was rubbing his temples impatiently and his eyes were narrowed. John knew this look. It was the I Have Something To Say But I Can’t Quite Find The Words To Say It Because Your Mere Presence Fucking Puts Me Off look.

“Cat got your tongue, Karkat?” he asked, giggling a bit because cat sounds like Karkat and after all this time, John’s main source of Karkat-related humour is still his name.

Karkat dropped his hands to the table and gave John another look. This time it was the You’re A Dumbfuck look. “Look, I just... I fucking do have something I need to say to you, alright?”

John grinned smugly. “Go on.”

Karkat often took it as his duty to ignore John where possible, and this situation was no exception. Before John had finished the word “on”, Karkat was off again.

“Ok, because I’ve been meaning to say this for a while... I fucking want to...”

He paused and gulped, the words stuck in his throat. John smiled encouragingly, but that only seemed to annoy Karkat more. But then he took a deep breath and kept going.

“I fucking want to be your Human Boyfriend, ok?”

Wait, _what_?

“I know your primitive mind is too small to comprehend the vastly superior system of Troll Romance, so I’m going to be kind and make a fucking concession for you. You can have me to yourself. I’ll never fill my caliginous quadrant and you won’t even notice my moirail. Honestly. So you should just... you should just go on a date with me. Or something.”

Karkat looked angrier than John had ever seen him, and John would have noticed this if he hadn’t been too busy trying to make sense of everything that Karkat had just said.

He wanted to go out with John?

That was kind of... too good to be true!

And then with the mental equivalent of a swift blow to the crotch, he realised that it _was_ too good to be true.

Fucking April Fools’, John, you’ve been had.

His face fell and he looked at the table, frowning. Karkat was staring expectantly at the back of John’s head.

John knew what he had to do.

He looked up slowly and caught Karkat’s eyes, forcing back a blush. “Karkat, I... I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

Karkat glared at him. “What.”

“This is just all so sudden,” John said, pouring on the melodrama. “I just... I don’t know if I can bear to face you after this mortifying situation.”

To anyone else, John’s painfully bad acting skills would have been evident, and they would have pissed themselves laughing. But Karkat fell for every word of it. He got up, his seat scraping on the linoleum floor, and bared his teeth at John in a way that was as terrifying as it was arousing. John had to bite his bottom lip (a feat that was not hard, considering his comical overbite) to prevent himself from grinning a little stupidly.

"Fine," Karkat said. "Fucking _fine_. I hope you have a good life without me in it, John Egbert."

Karkat stomped out of the diner with his fingernails digging into his palm, and as he stared vacantly at his back, John suddenly felt _awful_. Karkat didn’t get it! He had fallen for the prank... and that was sort of not what was supposed to happen. Well, it sort of was. But in hindsight it really really wasn’t!

John did the only reasonable thing and panicked like hell. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and furiously typed a message to Jade on Pesterchum.

 

  
EB: jade help i pulld pa praen,k on jarkat ein fd ofnow ohe dthinks we;re note fruebds eny more whwat snm i sdoing to dooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
GG: john calm down!!!!!!  
GG: i cant understand half of that!  
GG: whatre you trying to say? start at the beginning.  
EB: ok ok  
EB: calm  
EB: CALM  
GG: yes good, CALM  
EB: well i was just pulling my fantastic april fools' day prank on karkat but i think he took me seriously...  
GG: and what might this fantastic prank have been?  
EB: i  
EB: i told him we couldn’t be friends  
EB: is that not good?  
GG: john thats  
GG: thats not good  
EB: shut up it was a brilliant prank  
EB: he just didn't figure out that it was a prank  
EB: it would've been a brilliant prank on anyone but that numbnuts  
EB: god i'm so stupid, i'm the world's worst friend.  
GG: maybe youre just a really good actor??  
EB: yeah, that too.  
GG: ok so heres what youve got to do: you need to find karkat and tell him that you were playing a trick on him! im sure hell understand.  
EB: yeah he should understand  
EB: considering i nearly fell for HIS brilliant prank  
EB: haha that was funny  
EB: just  
EB: a little  
EB: heartbreaking???  
EB: ughhhhhhhhh  
GG: ...  
GG: what was his prank?  
EB: he asked me out.  
EB: HE ASKED ME OUT JADE  
EB: for a moment i thought he was being serious  
EB: but i guess that was just wishful thinking  
EB: you know??  
EB: so i guess thanks a heap for teaching karkat all about earth customs  
EB: and yes that was sarcasm  
EB: i can't believe you didn't consider the disastrous consequences of turning karkat into a prankster.  
GG: but i did.  
EB: you did what now?  
GG: i *did* consider the disastrous consequences  
GG: which is why i never actually told him about april fools day.  
EB: sdihgsukdhfkjsdufhkjsudhfksudhfskudv  
GG: john  
GG: he was being serious.  
EB: sdighsudvishdncsudgyeurygusfdhsvkjcvaudgfsduchkjfsdhjcsdskjdhsckdusvdkkxmnbvuy  
GG: john??  
GG: are you ok????  
EB: dsokory jade iev got otsdf go odshfsdhfskjdhkusfhdkuhfsducndjs

 

It was only when John was halfway down the street running in the direction that he presumed Karkat had taken that he realised he'd forgot to pay at the diner. He pulled himself to a stop near a traffic light and had the decency to blush a bit at his mistake.

But he would pay another time... heck, he would pay extra! Right now he had a prank to un-pull.

After taking a few moments to catch his breath, he took his phone back out and messaged Karkat.

 

  
EB: APRIL FOOLS' :B :B :B  
EB: IT WAS A PRANK  
EB: CAN WE BE FRIENDS AGAIN?

 

Unsurprisingly, even after waiting a few minutes there was no reply. He frowned. He would just have to track down Karkat and tell him in person.

He glanced at his wrist, and fiddled absently with the super-ironic wristband Dave had given him for his last birthday. It read "WWNCD?", and as John leant against a wall, still a bit out of breath, he wondered, what _would_ Nic Cage do?

It was a few moments before the thought sprung to his mind that he actually had no idea.

He checked Pesterchum to see if Jade was around, but she had gone offline. There was, however, someone else he could ask.

 

  
EB: dave  
EB: dave my best friend  
EB: dave my best friend who always gives me the best advice  
EB: can you see where i'm going with this?  
TG: do you need advice  
EB: yes.  
TG: ok this had better not be about karkat  
TG: im fucking sick of your unhealthy obsession with him bro  
TG: hes never going to ask you out  
TG: unless its on some batshit alien hatedate  
TG: but i have it on reliable authority that he doesnt hate you anymore  
TG: heck he almost hated me for a bit there but im pretty sure im ashen for him or some shit with kanaya cockblocking what would otherwise be hot interspecies hate sex  
TG: wait what am i saying  
TG: i dont think about him that way  
TG: ugh  
TG: but yeah kanaya asked if she could allspice between us so i guess i couldnt say no could i  
TG: anyway  
TG: i dont know  
TG: maybe you should try talking to him  
TG: although im not the best person to ask about this because my romantic experience is limited to sloppy makeouts  
TG: see i didnt even need to have the talk with tz  
TG: its just all kissing all the time  
TG: except when its not  
TG: is that too much information  
TG: but anyway the point is  
TG: you and karkat are both such women  
TG: youre going to have the talk  
TG: the feelings talk  
TG: and then youre both going to cry and hold each other like in one of his trashy movies  
TG: and then i guess sucks to be you because who the fuck would want to go out with karkat  
TG: i guess except for you  
TG: so what was your question  
EB: ...  
EB: that pretty much answered it. :B  
TG: seriously  
TG: you were going to ask me about how you should go about dating karkat  
EB: it's complicated.  
EB: but basically yes.  
TG: fuck  
TG: bro my only advice is  
TG: get out of there while you can  
EB: yeah ok whatever  
EB: i've got to go now.  
TG: wwncd john  
TG: wwncd

 

John frowned at his phone. Dave could be remarkably useless sometimes. He scrolled through his contacts to see if anyone else could help him out.

 

EB: rose!  
EB: boy am i glad to see you online!  
TT: For future reference, John, Karkat has no sense of humour.  
TT: So please refrain from pulling any further pranks on him.  
TT: It turns out that I'm the one who has to bear the brunt of his overreaction.  
EB: oh  
EB: ok  
EB: so does he hate me?  
TT: I'm not sure. After a while things got incoherent and all I really got out of it was that he was going to burn his Love, Actually DVD.  
EB: good  
EB: that film is shit.  
TT: To be frank, I'm surprised that you've actually seen it to be able to pass judgement.  
EB: late night tv is not my responsibility rose  
EB: things happen.  
TT: I'm not sure I want to know about your adventures in the magical land of late night television.  
TT: The point is, Karkat is currently at his hive crying into a tub of ice cream or three.  
TT: I think you know what you need to do.  
EB: thanks rose!  
EB: your advice is so much better than dave's.  
TT: I try.  
EB: when i've finished with this karkat business i'll come round to yours and we can talk about feelings and shit.  
EB: until then, wish me luck!  
TT: Try to be sensitive with him.  
EB: that's not good luck.  
EB: haha  
EB: see you rose!  
TT: Goodbye.  
TT: <>

 

John raised an eyebrow. What was _that_ symbol? Rose had never really been one for emotes. Maybe this was some new affectation. Like a typing quirk signature thing.

Whatever. He didn't have time to worry about things that he didn't know. He needed to attend to what he _did_ know, and that was that Karkat was crying over ice cream _without him_.

Not cool.

He took off at a brisk pace in the direction Karkat's hive.

 

\---

 

Karkat was definitely _not_ crying over ice cream.

He had simply devoured several tubs - he'd lost count - and then thrown his DVD collection at the wall in rage, one by one.

Finally he had settled down, lying on the floor with the tv blaring in the background.

It simply was not fair. He had _finally_ told John how he felt, only to be rejected. And not just rejected, but unfriended too! That was just cruel. That was totally out of line and John was a massive fucking idiot.

A massive fucking idiot who Karkat couldn't stop thinking about.

He was having feelings - _human_ feelings - that would never be returned. That hurt. That hurt a lot more than Terezi rejecting him for Dave. He'd gotten over that eventually. Terezi was happier with Dave, and now Karkat was unhappy without John.

It was not fair.

He ignored the sound of footsteps getting louder outside until there was a banging on the door.

"FUCK THE FUCK OFF," he yelled, "I'M BUSY."

"Can I come in?"

The sound of John's voice just made Karkat want to break things. "No you fucking cannot!"

"Okay," John said, "then I'll just stand at your door and explain."

When it became clear that Karkat wasn't going to say anything, and only shoved his face into his hands, John continued.

"It's the first of April today, right? Well, on the first of April there's a human custom known as April Fools' Day.”

John was evidently expecting Karkat to reply, because he took a moment to continue. Karkat gradually rolled himself towards the door.

“So, uh, it's when people play pranks on each other. That's basically all it is. Pranks! Fun funny fun pranks that aren’t real at all. So when you asked me out, well, I thought you were pranking me! Seeing as how Jade's told you all about human customs, I figured you were down with April Fools'. Apparently not."

There was another pause, in which Karkat could hear John taking a deep breath.

"So it had been my cunning plan all along to revoke our friendship as a prank, which at the time I thought would have been brilliant, but I guess now it just seems a bit silly. And when I realised, or, uh, _thought_ I realised, that you were joking about wanting to go out with me, I was a little bit... sad. I was a lot sad! So to see how you _really_ felt about me I went ahead with my prank and... well, you know, it didn't exactly work out. So that's why I'm here! To apologise!"

Karkat forced himself to stand up and walked to the door. He pressed his forehead against it and leant into the sound of John’s voice.

“So, uh, can you let me in?” John mumbled.

"And why should I do that?" Karkat asked, deadpan. He couldn’t even bring himself to shout. This would soon change.

"Um... because if you let me in I'll be your Human Boyfriend?"

Karkat stepped back from the door in shock. "What the fuck? _What the fuck, John._ ”

 _Now_ he was shouting.

“I said—”

“Fuck John, I _heard_ what you said. But that... that is just _cruel_ ,” he snapped.

“What’s cruel about me offering myself to you?” John whined.

“Because it’s fucking April Karkat’s A Fool Day! Well fuck you John, I won’t let you fool me twice in one day! You can fuck the fuck off! I do _not_ need this!”

“Karkat! No! Fuck just—just listen!”

Karkat hesitated, before pulling a very unattractive face at the door. “I’m done listening to you trick me, Egbert.”

“Just fucking listen! You can’t pull any pranks after midday! That’s the limit! It’s like a tradition thing!”

This was followed by a silence so dense that you could try and cut it with a knife, as in the common turn of phrase, but you wouldn’t even make a dent.

"Karkat, you fool, if I knew you were being serious, I would have said yes on the spot!" John said, and Karkat heard him bang some part of his body against the door, probably his dumb face.

And the sincerity in John's voice was proof enough. Karkat flung the door open and John collapsed forward - evidently he'd been leaning against it. Karkat managed to grab him so that he didn't hit the ground unceremoniously, and without even bothering to shut the door again he pulled John upright and shoved their lips together in an altogether graceless manner.

John clung to Karkat like an octopus and kicked the door closed behind him.

"You're a shit kisser," he mumbled, steering Karkat towards a chair and pushing him down.

"You're even fucking worse," Karkat snapped, blushing and looking absolutely anywhere other than at the scrawny human who had somehow managed to pin and mount him like a butterfly.

"Let me prove you wrong," John said in a pathetic imitation of a bedroom voice.

Karkat really couldn't refuse.

 

\---

 

  
EB: mission accomplisDIHGSIDHHddfds  
TT: ...  
EB: i mean  
EB: i got the boy, rose! i got him and iisadjgisdhksudgskudfsd  
EB: fuck karkat is hitting me  
EB: fuck  
EB: dighsduhgusdfkusdfydushdusfdhsfdfnm  
TT: I take it he'd rather you didn't share such personal information with me?  
EB: no he doesn'  
EB: I MIND  
EB: I FUCKING MIND.  
TT: Are you at Karkat's hive?  
EB: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NONE OF YOUR BUSI  
EB: we sure are!  
TT: I'll be there in a few minutes.  
EB: bring the others  
EB: and bring movies  
EB: i'm throwing a party!  
TT: I have to say, throwing a party does seem to be the only way to celebrate your finally getting together with Karkat.  
EB: yeheafk,m  
EB: d,ukfvvujdshfvksdhf  
EB: fhuvshvhfchyusr  
EB: riufh,hyrhfyuh  
TT: John?  
EB: argh sorry rose i was sitting on the phone for a moment there.  
TT: ...  
TT: I'll see you soon.  
TT: <>  
EB: yeah <> to you too!  
EB: i meant to ask what that meant  
EB: oh  
EB: oh karkat just explained that to me  
EB: ok uh  
EB <>?!  
TT: <>.  
EB: :D

 

Karkat finally wrestled the phone away from John and threw it halfway across the room. "You are without a doubt the WORST boyfriend EVER."

"Mhmmmmm, I love you too," John said, poking Karkat's horn absently. "I thought you'd be happy that I'm adopting an aspect of Troll Romance! What was it that you said? _You'll hardly notice my moirail_?"

Karkat frowned. "Fucking fair enough, I suppose the moral of the story is that we just have to be flexible with our definitions of romance."

"I'll show you just how flexible I can be!" John said, raising his left eyebrow, then his right, and then wiggling them up and down as if to demonstrate the remarkable extents of his flexibility.

"John. Please never do that again."

"Do what?"

"Raise your eyebrows like that. DON'T. JOHN STOP. JO-- "

Unfortunately, Karkat couldn’t finish his sentence, as he found himself tackled and set upon by a most rapacious John.

When John pulled away, Karkat gave him a menacing stare, as menacing as he could possibly be in a post-makeouts daze.

“So what movie do you want to watch when the others get here?” John asked.

Karkat frowned in thought for a moment.

“Anything but another fucking romance.”


End file.
